The conference aims to revisit emigration until nowadays and will focus on contexts of instability and processes of political, economic and social change, regardless of the overall volume of exits, in order to identify peculiarities and similarities between different moments.

Argument

Debates about the current emigration phenomenon are motivated by the necessity to understand the profile and the motivations of the emigrant itself, and the impact of emigration to the national context. It takes into account the advantages but also the inconvenients of this phenomenon from an individual and a collective perspective, the economic and social contexts and the visions of both the communities of origin and of destination. These questions have been searching for an anchor on past migratory movements, such as those during the Belle Époque or those in the 1960s or even in the 1990s – since they have a solid scientific background of research conducted – in order to understand and even possibly inscribe the current state of affairs in the History of Portuguese Emigration.

Nevertheless, the quantitative weight which defines emigration as a conjectural phenomenon has the problem to deviate scientific interest from the cycles of migration considered less strong in quantitative terms, such as those in the 1930s and in the 1940s, which occurred in a context of economic crisis, or those in the 1990s, when the image of immigration country seemed to fit Portugal.

However, that doesn’t explain neither the presence of an emigration as a constant individual strategy and/or a strategy of collective survival, nor its permanent place in the political agenda. Also, there hasn’t been devoted any particular attention to the development of knowledge about the significance of different political, economic and social contexts in migrations.

The conference aims to revisit emigration until nowadays and will focus on contexts of instability and processes of political, economic and social change, regardless of the overall volume of exits and of the type of emigration, in order to identify peculiarities and similarities between different moments. In parallel to the economic and politic emigration, the conference will give importance to the scientific emigration.

Main themes

Proposals may include, but are not limited to, the following themes:  

•  Economic, politic and scientific emigration;
•  Migrantsʼ profile;
•  Causes and consequences of migration;
•  Motivations and individual, family and groups’ strategies;
•  Legal, illegal and undocumented migration;
•  Migratory networks;
•  Speeches and political debates;
•  Migration policies;
•  Migrants and migration representations;
•  Differences between migratory realities in Southern Europe;
•  Theoretical reflections on migration. 

The conference encourages interdisciplinary analysis and methodological debate.

Submission guidelines 

Those interested should send a proposal (maximum 500 words) in English, with title and a brief CV (maximum 1page).

The conference working languages will be Portuguese, English, Spanish and French.

Deadlines

Proposals must be sent to: migrarnainstabilidade@gmail.com

until February 28, 2015.

Notice of acceptance will be sent by the conference organizers by March 15, 2015.

Abstract of the presentation (until 2 pages) until May 15, 2015. 

A publication with peer review is possible. 

For more information:

echoesmigrations.blogspot.pt

www.ihc.fcsh.unl.pt

Conference organizers

• Maria Fernanda Rollo (IHC-FCSH/UNL)
• Marta Silva (IHC-FCSH/UNL)
• Thaís Janaina Wenczenovicz (UERGS)
• Yvette Santos (IHC-FCSH/UNL)